Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-07-02
NEW YORK's
A Rate Exceeded in Only Three Cities Ia
This Country.

This Country.
Special Correspondence Of the Register.
NEW YORK, June 3O.-The painful fact
that the death rate in New York city is
higher than in most of the great cities Of
the world, whether in cool or warm eli
mates. Richmond, Mobile and New Or
leans are the only cities in the United
States that exceed it, and in the two for
mer this is due to the excessive death rate
of the colOred people, for in Richmond the
yearly deaths among the whites were flor
1854 but 10 in 1000, and in Mobile but
little more, while New York's losses were
%. so per 1000. Even Calcutta, where
the cholera comes almost every year, has a
death rate but slightly greater than that Of
New York, and the annual death rate OF
New Orleans in the worst yellow fever
wears was but q tritle greater than that Of
New York. The reasons can be summed
up in one word-hlth. Immigrants from
the poorest classes of Southern Europe are
poured into this city by the hundred thou
sand; they crowd into tenements so thickly
that ventilation is impossible, and live on
the poorest of food. The result is that
children perish by myriads.
New York's location should make it one
of the notably healthful cities of the world.
It is built upon an island of solid rock,
thinly covered here and there by earth;
the slope from the island to the crest Of
the island to the bay and rivers insures
the best of drainage; twice u day the tide
pours a briny torrent up the Hudson and
East rivers, washing all sides OF the city,
and at night the iOdized sea air sweeps
every street and alley. The heat Is sell
dom oppressive for more than W or
three days at a time, and even IN mldsum-
mer the nights are for b most part
pleasantly cool. Nature has done her part
well: the excessive death rate Is due only
To the folly and ignorance Of men. Other
cities were located by accident, like Rome
in a defensible corner between marsh and
hills. or st. Petersburg in a bog; but Man
haitian island was from the beginning
marked by the hand of nature as the site OF
a metropolis. The angle of the coast and
Long Island sound, the confluence OF great
nayigable river with the sound, the
valleys opening to the interior as natural
routes for trade and travel, all combine to
make this the great city OF the western
continent. The wOeful waste OF lite here
is due to the tact that population increases
faster than government or sanitary SCIENCE
can care for it; q city that doubleslts popu-
LATHAM IN a quarter Of q century outgrows
the wisest measures of craftsmanship.
Let government and physicians plan ever
80 wisely, their measures for the proven
ton OF disease are no sooner carried into
effect than it is found that the population
has swollen by 200, 900 or 300, 900 beyond
the scope of the plans. The time Is at
hand, however, when far more radical
measures must be adopted government,
in spite of it's democratic form, will be
compelled to become paternal, and at
enormous cost. And tenement houses
must be torn down and their sites
made into open parks Narrow
streets must be enlarged. \ systematic
house TO house visitation must be adopted
in all the sQualid sections, and the newly
arrived Italians, Hungarians and Others
who are children in the art Of self govern
ment must be treated as children until
thew learn to take better care CT them
selves. Death is an expensive institution.
Even if our humanity would allow us to
'let the unclean perish" q reasonable re-
gard for ourselves would compel action.
With things as they are, it is plain that
the death rate will increase. At the best
there are many wOeful sights in great
city-diseased and distorted beggars, I'LL
looking v~agabonds and repulsive drunk
ards, tramps, beats and buns, the t
cast and the forlorn who form little alley
congregations of rags, sore eyes and sin.
All these and many other causes go to
make city life unhsppy. The favored few
escape the misery, but 1t IS PLAIN 10 me
that in the mass New Workers are not
bannv J. H. BEADLE.